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Light and Shadow

Mark Colvin is a broadcasting legend. He is the voice of ABC Radio's leading current affairs program PM; he was a founding broadcaster for the groundbreaking youth station Double J; he initiated The World Today program; and he's one of the most popular and influential journalists in the twittersphere.

Mark has been covering local and global events for more than four decades. He has reported on wars, royal weddings and everything in between. In the midst of all this he discovered that his father was an MI6 spy.

Light and Shadow is the incredible story of a father waging a secret war against communism during the Cold War, while his son comes of age as a journalist during the tumultuous Whitlam and Fraser years and embarks on the risky career of a foreign correspondent.

Mark was witness to some of the most world-changing events, including the Iranian hostage crisis…

Mark Colvin is a broadcasting legend. He is the voice of ABC Radio's leading current affairs program PM; he was a founding broadcaster for the groundbreaking youth station Double J; he initiated The World Today program; and he's one of the most popular and influential journalists in the twittersphere.

Mark has been covering local and global events for more than four decades. He has reported on wars, royal weddings and everything in between. In the midst of all this he discovered that his father was an MI6 spy.

Light and Shadow is the incredible story of a father waging a secret war against communism during the Cold War, while his son comes of age as a journalist during the tumultuous Whitlam and Fraser years and embarks on the risky career of a foreign correspondent.

Mark was witness to some of the most world-changing events, including the Iranian hostage crisis, the buildup to the first Gulf War in Iraq and the direct aftermath of the shocking genocide in Rwanda. But when he contracted a life-threatening illness while working in the field, his life changed forever.

Mark Colvin's engrossing memoir takes you inside the coverage of major news events and gently navigates the complexity of his father's double life.

About the author

Mark Colvin joined the ABC as a cadet in 1974. He was the first presenter of The World Today and worked for Four Corners for five years. After five years as London correspondent for the ABC, interrupted by six months in hospital with a life threatening disease, he returned to Australia as presenter of PM in 1997, a job he continued to do despite three years on dialysis and a successful kidney transplant. Mark died in May 2017.

Reviews

"Colvin can write as well as he speaks."

Alan Attwood — The Age/SMH

"In this cinematic memoir, we get the director's cut of a world on edge, and insight into two parallel lives. Colvin peers into the dark, radiates light and, through the glory of a mind and body at large, captures truths."

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